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Saturday, 23 May 2015

Burnham and Cooper are not the "Change" candidates - they are Brownite deficit denying dinosaurs

Andy Burnham has been going on about how he is the change candidate for Labour: https://www.politicshome.com/party-politics/articles/story/andy-burnham-i-am-labours-change-candidate
Cooper is making the same point in a different way.
However, I have two strong argument that debunk this theory totally.
1. For the last five years I have seen from my spot on the parliamentary benches opposite Burnham and Cooper that these two are utter deficit denying, old school, dyed in the wool, Brownites. They opposed every reduction in budget, regardless of the merit, for five years. This is not an isolated vote - this is dozens of votes, dozens of opportunities to accept that this country has to live within its means. They failed every test, shirked every opportunity, denied any overspend.
2. The reason is simple: they are up to their ears in the Blair / Brown overspend and "I am sorry there is no more money" era. They do not deny it because they were both a part of it. Both were in the Labour Treasury and major departments of state.
Labour can choose the past and elect either of these two. If they do they might as well rename their party the Dinosaur Party because they would have no relevance to 2015, and modern politics.
Labour's real problem is that too many of the MPs [Ian Mearns, the Gateshead MP, is one] simply believe that they were not left wing enough at the last election. Deficit denying and believing that Gordon Brown was always right is not going to get them far in 2015-2020. They either choose the future or they will stay a relic of the past.